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Orc Engineers
|upkeep_cost = |num_figures = |moves = |melee = |defense = |resist = |hits = |abilities = Construction Wall Crusher }} Orc Engineers are a type of Normal Unit. This unit may be created from an Orc town, for the Construction Cost of . The town must already contain a Builders' Hall for this to be possible. The primary purpose of Orc Engineers is to build Roads across your empire. This is done by sending the Engineers to a tile where you want a road constructed, and giving them the order to "Build". The process takes several turns, and is sped up when several Engineers go to work on the same tile. On the other hand, Orc Engineers make very poor combat units, with only a token Melee Attack and almost no Defense. Like all Engineers they may however assist during siege combat, by using their Wall Crusher ability to bring down enemy City Walls. Orc Engineers require an Upkeep Cost of and to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically. Unit Properties Physical Description Orc Engineers are a group of short, ugly, red-skinned humanoids, dressed in grey tunics. Though they are not seen to be carrying any weapons or armor, they are implied to be equipped with short swords for self defense. Like most Orcs, Orc Engineers are quite mundane, possessing no great or fantastic qualities, but also no glaring disadvantages. Orc Engineers are a , containing when fully healed. Attack Properties Orc Engineers initially possess a very weak Melee Attack, which will only be threatening to other low-tier Normal Units. It gets a little stronger with . Each Engineer makes a Melee Attack with a strength of . With no additional bonuses this gives each Engineer an average damage output of only , or rather, there is only a 30% chance for each Engineer to inflict any damage on the opponent, before allowing the opponent to make Defense rolls to deflect damage. Therefore the Orc Engineers are highly unlikely to get through any armor at all. Mitigating this slightly, a fully healed unit contains , so there are 6 separate chances to inflict damage. This still isn't much, so the Orc Engineers' Melee Attack should not be counted upon to do any significant amount of damage to anything but the weakest enemy units, at least until they gain some Experience. Even then, this unit's low Defense score (see below) further discourages any combat. On the other hand, Orc Engineers can still do some good in combat - specifically in siege combat where an enemy town is surrounded by City Walls. The Orc Engineers can walk up to a wall section and attack it, having a 50% chance of simply knocking a hole in the wall. This allows other, stronger Walking units to enter the enemy town and attack the defenders inside. Defense Properties Orc Engineers possess a Defense score of - making them extremely vulnerable to damage. The unit can only block about from any damage source, on average. Pretty much any attack is guaranteed to injure this unit. As with most Normal Units, each Orc Engineer possesses only . In other words, each point of inflicted on this unit will kill off one of its . These values further serve to discourage allowing the Engineers to engage in combat, as the unit will surely be destroyed. For purposes of defending against Curses and other combat maledictions, the Orc Engineers have a very-low Resistance score of - barely enough to protect them from such effects. Other Properties Orc Engineers move at a slow , and can only traverse land tiles. The unit has no special movement properties. Road Construction : The Engineers are not designed for combat. Their primary purpose is construction of infrastructure - i.e. Roads. Orc Engineers can work on the overland map to create links between Towns, allowing both faster travel by your units and increased income from trade. This is an extremely important part of the empire-building process, so acquiring Engineers from any race is vital for almost all empires. To construct a Road, the Engineers unit must first move into the tile where you wish the road to begin. Then, issue the order to "Build", in the unit's command menu. You may click on any tile on the overland map to plot a route along which to build the road, or simply confirm construction immediately to have the Engineers construct a road where they're standing. The panel on the right side of the screen displays the number of turns it'll take to finish building the road you've plotted. Note that it only takes into account the number of turns taken up by building. It does not take into account the turns spent on moving between tiles! The amount of time required to build a road in a tile depends on the Terrain in that tile, and is also influenced by some Terrain Specials. The average construction time for a single unit of Engineers is about 5-6 turns per tile, with construction on Grassland tiles being fastest (3 turns) and construction in Mountains, Swamps and Volcanoes being slowest (8 turns). The process can be sped up by ordering several units of Engineers to construct the road together. The fastest speed possible is 1 turn per tile (regardless of Terrain), and is achieved with only 5 Engineers working simultaneously. Additional Engineers contribute nothing to the effort. Roads are automatically connected whenever they are constructed in adjacent tiles (including diagonally). Once a road is built in a tile, any unit can move into this tile at a cost of only 0.5 Movement Points. Thus, units can travel faster across your empire. Note of course that enemy and neutral units can do so as well. If a Road stretches continuously all the way from one Town to another, both towns gain a small but significant bonus to their income (generated from trade between them). This is another strong incentive to construct a network of roads connecting all towns. Any Roads built in Myrror are automatically transformed into Enchanted Roads for no extra fee. Units may move into an Enchanted Road tile without wasting any Movement Points, and thus can travel vast distances along a well-established road system in a single turn. Sadly, Non-Corporeal units cannot do this - they travel at 0.5 Movement Points per tile regardless of anything. For more detailed information, please visit the article about Roads. Basic Strategy The primary job of the Orc Engineers is to build Roads. Any empire that can recruit Engineers of any race will benefit from this, as Roads bestow both a better strategic capability and a respectable amount of income from trade. Any respectable empire that does not run on brute force alone will want to accomplish this as early as possible. The strategic benefit comes with the ability to quickly move troops between towns, as well as towards Nodes. Reinforcements and replacements can thus be ferried quickly from the production centers to any combat zone. A well-networked empire is hard to conquer, as it can put its armies wherever they are needed! The benefit will obviously improve the ability to field more armies, recruit more Heroes, and upgrade towns. As the towns grow, in particular, so will the income from trade between them! This exponential factor can put an empire financially ahead of its competitors, and that is a very strong advantage. For empires built on Myrror, the strategic benefit is even more important, since Enchanted Roads allow virtually unlimited movement. Units can instantly arrive from any town to any location that needs defenses, and roads can be built straight into enemy territory (with armies protecting the Engineers, of course) to allow armies to simply stream in, overwhelming the enemy. Orc Engineers are basically non-combat units. Though they can be brought into a battle to assist (particularly during sieges), they are not designed to fight and will not survive. They are also too expensive to waste, and so should not be constructed with battle in mind. Still, during a siege battle, Engineers can work to create holes in City Walls (if present). This works alright in lieu of Catapults or other Wall Crushers, though it puts the Engineers at risk. In particular, avoid attempting to destroy a wall section when there is an enemy unit right behind it. The Engineers will attack that unit, and thus be exposed to its Counter Attack! This will surely get them all killed! Instead, try to breach the wall at an unoccupied location. Be ready to have your other units stream in through that hole. Ability Overview Construction * This unit can build Roads. * To use this ability, travel to the tile where the road is to begin, and select the "Build" command. You may select a desired route, or simply let the unit built a single road section at its current position. * Construction time varies from tile to tile. Each additional unit simultaneously performing Road construction in the same tile accelerates the process. * The maximum rate - 1 turns to build one road section, regardless of Terrain - is achieved with 5 units working simultaneously. There is no benefit to adding more units. Wall Crusher * This unit can make Melee Attacks and/or Ranged Attacks (as available) against City Walls. Each attack has a certain chance to destroy the targeted wall section for the remainder of the battle. * A Ranged Attack has a 25% chance of destroying the targeted wall section. A Melee Attack has a 50% chance of destroying the targeted wall section. * If an enemy unit is standing behind the wall when it is attacked, the Wall Crusher unit attacks that unit as well. Defense bonuses to the target unit depend on whether or not the wall is destroyed during this attack. * This ability can only destroy City Walls. Other, magical wall types are not affected. Experience Table The following table illustrates how Orc Engineers improve as they gain Experience. Any properties that are not listed here do not improve with Experience in any way. * To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the Crusade spell must be in play. ** To achieve this level, both the Warlord Retort and the Crusade spell must be in play simultaneously. Average Damage Output The table below details the average amount of damage that each in an Orc Engineers unit will deliver with each type of attack, based on . It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to figure out the chance of hurting that target. Acquisition Orc Engineers may be produced in any Orc Town. A town must contain the Builders' Hall to be able to produce Orc Engineers. Should a town lose its Builders' Hall, it can no longer produce Orc Engineers until a replacement structure is built. The Construction Cost of this unit is . Orc Engineers may appear for hire as Mercenaries. They may already have some Experience on being hired, and several units may be hired simultaneously. Hiring these units requires a certain cost in that depends on many different factors. Orc Engineer Mercenaries have the same Upkeep Cost as a normally-constructed unit. Category:Units Category:Normal Units Category:Orcs Category:Engineers